Die Rich Die Happy c-2

by James Munro

  "—then in the middle of it you got bored and you went off to talk business."

  "Did she tell you this?" Naxos asked.

  "I was watching. I saw it all," said the count.

  Philippa tried to speak then, but Naxos shook his head, the suspicion of a grin on his face.

  "You saw it?" Craig asked.

  "I did," said the Count de Tavel.

  T wonder what that makes you?" said Craig. "Don't the French have a word for it?"

  Tavel leaped from his chair, his whole body aimed at Craig's throat, his hands squeezing hard. Craig grabbed his wrists, pulled up, then hard down, and the hands came away. Tavel continued the movement and his hands were free. He brought his knee up, missed the blow at the crotch, and hit Craig's stomach. Craig gasped, sagged back, and Tavel came in with his fists. Craig took one blow on the shoulder, another on the cheekbone, and staggered back to the bulkhead. Tavel leaped in to finish the fight, slamming a hard right for Craig's jaw but Craig was already sagging at the knees, his head rolling on his chest. Tavel's fist brushed his hair and slammed into the bulkhead. The count screamed, and then the scream was chopped off short as Craig's fist came down like a mallet on the side of his neck. He fell hard, twitched once, and was still.

  "What the hell is going on?" said Craig.

  "Really it's too bad of him," said Swyven, and his hand groped out for a drink.

  "You'd better wait till you stop shaking," Craig said. "And anyway it's my drink."

  "I'm most awfully sorry," said Swyven.

  "That's all right,' said Craig. He turned to Naxos, who was wheezing horribly, then the wheezing turned to a roaring laughter that sounded like a mob yelling for blood.

  "What the hell—" Craig said again.

  "You hit hard," said Swyven.

  "Bloody hard," said Pia. "Bim, Bam. Ker-pow."

  "He hit me," said Craig.

  "He often does. Hit people I mean," said Swyven. "He was in the French army—Algeria, Vietnam, and all that. Nowadays he picks fights with people and hits them. It's a sort of emotional release."

  "Don't they hit back?" Craig asked.

  "Not usually. He's very good at fighting."

  "So's Craig," Naxos wheezed. "He was in the Special Boat Service. They taught him pretty good."

  'That was a long time ago," said Craig. "It's funny the things you remember."

  "Like riding a bike," said Naxos. 'That's a hell of a Sunday punch, John. Dirty too."

  "If I fight clean I always lose," said Craig.

  Tavel groaned, and Naxos's smile disappeared; his features rearranged themselves into a frown.

  "I told him last time—no more fights with my friends. Guests yes, friends no." Then the frown disappeared. "Ah, what the hell. He lost, didn't he?"

  Craig rubbed his aching stomach, glad of the hard ridge of muscle that had taken the blow.

  "Maybe he couldn't tell the difference," said Craig.

  I wonder if I made it convincing, he thought. No judo, no karate, just the rough stuff they teach you on a Commando course. The count knew it all too. But he drinks too much. He's brittle. And what was the object of the exercise anyway? To see if I would fight? To see how much I knew? To put me out of action?

  Naxos picked up the telephone and called the doctor, then turned to Craig.

  "I really am sorry about it, John," he said. "I honestly thought he was cured."

  Philippa sat in the chair, her hand running along the coarse silk of the cushion, picked at a loose piece of thread. "He hit you too," said Philippa. "Are you all right?"

  "Yes," said Craig. He looked down at Swyven who had knelt beside Tavel, and was bathing his forehead with a napkin dipped in an ice bucket.

  "I'm fine. So long as people don't get the idea it was my fault for not letting him beat me unconscious."

  Swyven said: "He's a friend of mine. I worry about

  him."

  "You do right," said Craig, and turned to Pia. "Did you put him up to this?"

  "Of course not," said Pia. "He isn't a friend of mine." Swyven winced.

  "He's just a dirty Peeping Tim."

  "Tom," said Craig. "Peeping Tomf

  "Tim, Tom, I'm glad you hit him," said Pia. Then the doctor came in, and glanced quickly at Philippa before he bent over the prostrate Tavel.

  « Chapter 9 *

  When Craig got to his cabin he went at once to the suitcase. Someone had found the false bottom, all right. He took out the gun, and examined it cautiously, inch by inch. The screw that held the firing pin had been removed. He looked at the magazines. They were empty. Only the knife was intact. Tavel would have done better if he'd held the shells in his hand. Tavel had a broken knuckle and a bruise on his neck and a vicious headache, and he'd earned them all, but as an operator he didn't begin to make sense. Nor did Swyven. He was a physical coward. And Swyven had been afraid before the fight. He'd known it was coming. And somebody had worked out the excuse for setting up the fight: Tavel's known eagerness and talent for fisticuffs. Somebody also had a reason for setting it up, and that was obvious. Craig had to be out of the way before the yacht reached Venice. He wondered who the man was behind these clowns. His technique was brilliant—offer Tavel and Swyven on a plate—and Pia too perhaps? Make them keep Craig busy, while he, the unknown, got on with the dirty work. His only fault was that he'd overdone it slightly. He was too thorough.

  He thought about the thread Philippa had picked from the cushion—black cotton thread from a red silk cushion. The chair Tavel had sat in. Naxos's chair. The thread Craig had put over the lock on his door. It looked as if he was better at searching rooms than beating ex-sailors unconscious. And Naxos had just stood by and laughed. Naxos had thought it was funny. And maybe it was. Craig would have liked to laugh too, but laughter hurt his stomach.

  He woke next morning, and found he was famous. The people Naxos had asked along didn't dislike Tavel. They didn't like Craig either, but Craig had won, and that made him interesting. He discovered something else, too. The ship was moving south through the Cyclades, before swinging a great arc past the Peloponnesus, and northwest to the Adriatic at a steady fifteen knots. Two hundred miles at an unwavering fifteen knots. They would be in Venice in three days.

  After breakfast Craig went to the swimming pool on the foredeck. Naxos, he learned, was cloistered with his secretaries; Philippa was still asleep. There was time for a swim. At the other end of the pool Pia lay on a mattress, her body dark, even in the sunlight, and glistening with oil. She waved to Craig, and he went into the water in a flat, smashing dive, then swam toward her, using an ugly, powerful crawl, whose only virtue was utility. It was fast. He'd learned to swim like that in the cold North Sea. He heaved himself up from the water beside Pia, and a steward came up and handed him a towel.

  'VVould you like a drink, sir?" asked the steward.

  "He'll have some of mine," said Pia. "Bring a glass."

  The steward brought a tumbler, and Pia reached for a jug, poured out two glasses of a shining, golden fluid.

  "Orange juice?" asked Craig.

  "In a way," Pia said.

  "What does that mean?"

  "It is diluted with champagne," said Pia.

  "Don't you ever give up?" Craig asked.

  "Kicks," she said. "I've got to live for kicks. After all I am a starlet."

  She sipped her golden firewater and Craig lay down beside her. As he did so his foot slipped on the wet tiles by the pool, kicking his glass into it.

  "Sorry," he said, "111 get another one."

  "Don't bother," Pia said at once. "We'll share mine."

  She wasn't that good an actress. All that had gone into the pool was orange juice and champagne. She sipped again, and held the glass to Craig's hps.

  "Nice?" she asked.

  I'll learn to live with it," said Craig.

  She was sitting up beside him, her weight supported on her arms, that were thrust out behind her. The pose brought her torso into superb relief, emphasizing i
ts rich curves, the firm, heavy roundness of flesh that the scarlet bikini did an irreducible minimum to conceal. Her eyes held his, then she breathed in, hard.

  "I like your dress," said Craig.

  She breathed out in a burst of laughter, then leaned over him, the weight of her breasts just touching his chest, her lips soft on his mouth. Craig's arms came round her, held her for a moment, then let her go.

  "Who will I have to fight this time?" he asked.

  T am sorry about last night. Honestly," said Pia. "Next time, I promise you, he won't be anywhere near." The waiter came back.

  "Suntan oil, sir?" he asked, and handed a bottle to

  Craig.

  "Thanks," said Craig, and lay down again. "I will rub your back," said Pia.

  He felt the cool smoothness of the oil on his back, then rolled over to feel it on his shoulders, his chest, Pia's fingers moved slowly, dehghtfully across his body, then paused at the rawness of the scar he'd received from Bauer.

  "Were you in an accident?" she asked.

  "Skin diving," Craig said. "I cut myself on a clam

  shell."

  Tt must have been very sharp." "Like a knife," said Craig. 'Tell me about your pictures."

  They had been religious epics mostly, and Pia the

  Aad virgm from the right just before the hons came on. 5red had two tests for English companies, one for Hollywood. They'd come to nothing.

  "That is how it goes," she said. "But it will change. There is time. I'm just twenty-six. With luck I've got ten years."

  "And then?"

  "I'll sleep," she said. "Sleep and sleep. Without pills and all by myself." She paused. "Perhaps you—sometimes if I wake up—" her nails nipped the muscles of his thigh; he stared into the richness of her breasts. She was stupid, sweet, and probably dangerous, but she held tremendous sexual promise. Craig all but groaned aloud when Philippa came up and lay down beside them.

  "John," she said, "you do smell pretty."

  She wore a white beach robe. Below it her legs were long, rounded, golden.

  "That's the suntan oil you keep," said Craig.

  "No," said Pia. "I cheated. I used mine. You smell just like me." She offered a brown shoulder to Craig, who sniffed delicately at the little mole in the center.

  "If I went back to London now, I'd be arrested," he

  said.

  Pia was looking beyond him into Flip's blue eyes. She saw the signal there, rose, and stretched.

  T think I'll just look over my things for tonight," she said. "Bye, John."

  Craig watched the slow ticktock of her hips as she

  left.

  "She's working hard on you," said Flip. "Are you tMnking of being a producer?"

  'Too dangerous," said Craig.

  She unloosed the cord of her robe, let it slip from her shoulders. Below it she wore a one-piece swimsuit of white nylon, high in the front, low in the back. Against it her skin was pale gold, her hair almost white. Craig reached out for the suntan oil.

  "Shall I rub your back?"

  "No," she said. T might like it. Let's swim instead."

  For a while they swam, fooling, splashing, competing half-seriously, each testing the other. She was a magnificent swimmer, and she dived neatly, elegantly, without fear. Craig worked hard to keep up with her. Then more guests arrived, and Craig climbed out of the pool and dried himself. The carafe of orange juice gleamed in the sunlight as if there were a light inside it. Beside it something else lay glittering. The botde of suntan oil the waiter had brought. Craig picked it up and went to his cabin.

  The oil was delicately scented, heavy, silvery-clear, as the maker's label claimed it would be. Craig poured a little on to the white-painted wood of his bed, and watched. Nothing happened. He grinned, shook his head, and sat down to think about Venice. About this Trottia character. They all had to be watched. It was just as well he'd made Andrews send word for Grierson to join them. There were Pia, Swyven, and Tavel to be watched too. Or maybe he should leave that to Grierson. Grierson investigating Pia— a labor of love. He decided on a drink before lunch, showered, and started to put on his clothes. From the corner of his eye he could see that there was a bug of some kind on his bed. The brown showed up against the white paint. He went over to it and looked more closely. The bug was just the woodwork, showing up where the paint had been eaten away by the suntan oil. He took a piece of paper from his writing table, and held it to the wood. It was thick paper, heavy, expensive. The acid on the woodwork melted it like polythene in a flame. He looked at his watch. It took twenty minutes to act, but then it worked like hghtning. He thought of his back, and Pia's hands.

  * Chapter 10 «?

  There were too many languages. The man Dyton-Blease spoke English, always, and English she could manage very well, but in the palazzo the servants spoke Italian to each other, and Trottia sulked sometimes because she could speak no French. Trottia and the servants presented other problems, too. Trottia was the first man she had ever met who liked to pretend that he was a woman, and who disliked women at that. This meant that he disliked her, and therefore had to be watched. Her father had warned her to beware of Frangistani enemies; they had no honor, they were worse than Arabs. The servants presented another problem. They were not, Dyton-Blease assured her, slaves. On the contrary. Sometimes they seemed more like masters, so that when one of them, a seamstress, had stuck a pin in her at a fitting and she had slapped her, a swinging, open-handed smack, she had had to apologize and Trottia had had to give the woman more money. Slaves were a lot easier.

  Then there was so much water in Venice. Everywhere there was water. The streets were full of it. You had to make a boat journey to ride a horse, on that ridiculous island they called Lido. On Lido, too, you had to wear a swimsuit, to he about on the sand near naked while men you did not know and would not wish to love looked at your body. This disgusted her, but Dyton-Blease insisted on it.

  Selina walked to the shuttered window, looked out on the moving, aqueous light of Venice, green, shimmering, brilliant. Below her was the Grand Canal; across it a majestic parade of palaces. From the window to her left she could see the piazzo, the piazzetta, Saint Mark's, the Doge's palace. Moored to the steps of the palazzo a motorboat waited to take her to Florian's, Harry's Bar, and a dozen churches crammed with masterpieces. Selina didn't care. She wanted desert, scrubland, the sight and sound of horses. She was—what was the word that man had used— homesick. A real man, that one, slow because of his sickness but ready to fight, if necessary to kill. Without fear. Power and courage in the gray northern eyes. To he on the beach in front of that one—she dismissed the idea. He was a liar. He had said he was English.

  With a sigh she let fall her dressing gown, prepared to struggle once more with the clothes European women, Dyton-Blease told her, managed so easily. Brassiere and suspender belt and panties and stockings clipped on to the belt, then slip and dress and your hair all over the place. She looked at herself in the mirror, and for the first time since she was three years old, contemplated the possibility of crying. Then Dyton-Blease knocked on the door. Everyone knocked since Trottia had walked in to find her in her slip and she had beaten him unconscious with a silver-backed hairbrush. On its back was a rehef of Actaeon surprising

  Diana bathing. Dyton-Blease had laughed, but not Trottia. Diana's quiver had torn his scalp. Dyton-Blease said: "The man we need will be here tonight." Selina sighed in relief. Soon she could go home.

  "He is giving a ball," said Dyton-Blease. "You and I will go. We will be able to talk; it will be quite safe. I will see that no one interrupts."

  Selina looked, appraising, at Bernard's enormous size. Huge but not lumpy. Smooth-muscled. Speed to match his strength. She wondered how the man who lied would cope with a strength and speed like this. And yet she had no wish to be loved by Bernard. Since he first came to Haram she was sure he loved no one but himself.

  "When you meet this man Naxos, he will agree to buy. All your father will sell him. Th
en you will go home."

  "But why?" she said. "Why should he want such terrible stuff?"

  "To sell to someone else at a profit. He's a businessman after all," Dyton-Blease said, and sneered. "That's all I can tell you."

  "And if he won't buy?"

  "He will. He must," Dyton-Blease said.

  Another knock at her door. Trottia's knock.

  "Trottia," Dyton-Blease said. "See him, please. He has your costume ready."

  "Costume?"

  "Tonight will be a costume ball," Dyton-Blease said. "You are going as an odalisque." He flushed for a moment as she looked puzzled, then started to explain. Selina understood the flush at once. An odalisque meant sex, and sex terrified Dyton-Blease. She smiled and his flush deepened.

  "You don't mind?" he asked.

  "I don't know," said Selina. "Let me see my costume."

  Trottia brought it in, as plump and sacerdotal as a priest displaying a relic. Slave bangles for ankles and wrists, filmy pantaloons, a velvet jacket, gold lame breast coverings, gold necklace, a velvet cap, gold-trimmed, and a muslin veil to hide her face, but not her body. Selina looked at Trottia who stepped back two paces. His scalp wound had only just healed.

  "Someone will pinch me," said Selina.

  Trottia's face paled, and his carefully preserved Titian-red hair flamed scarlet against its whiteness. He re-

  membered the appalling moment on the Accademia bridge when somebody had pinched the little fiend's bottom, and she had swung at the nearest male and only just missed. The nearest male had been a Dominican friar.

  "No one will pinch you," said Dyton-Blease. "These people are different."

  "I hope so," said Selina. "But if these are what I am to wear—why all this?" And she swept her hand in a fury down her dress.

  "It may be necessary to stay with Naxos for a while, on his yacht," Dyton-Blease said. "It depends—" "On what?"

  "An Englishman," said Dyton-Blease. "I expect that he will be ill by now. If not, it will be necessary to kill him."

  "What does he look like?" Selina asked.

  "You've met before," Dyton-Blease said. "But then I didn't know who he was. I wish to God I had." He took a photograph from his pocket, and handed it to her. She found herself looking at Craig, and realized that he had not lied.